You upgraded your printer — an Ender Extender, a bigger bed, new clips — and Cura still insists big grey chunks of the build plate are off-limits. Those are Machine Disallowed Areas, baked into the printer definition files, and there’s no checkbox to turn them off.
Cura-Cure is a small PowerShell script that removes the Machine Disallowed Areas restriction from all printer profiles in Cura in one go.
Which printers does it fix?
At the time of writing, 19 of the 605 printers Cura supports had disallowed areas in their definitions, including:
- Creality Ender 3
- Ultimaker 2, 2 Go, 2+, 2+ Connect and 3
- LulzBot Mini 2 (SE and SL)
- Anycubic Kossel and Kossel Linear Plus
- Cartesio, DXU and DXU UMO, Deltacomb DC20 Dual, Mark2 for Ultimaker 2, Structur3D Discov3ry, and Vertex K8400 (single and dual)
The script is written dynamically, though: if new printers get added, or a printer suddenly grows disallowed areas in its definition, it fixes those too. Just run it once after each Cura upgrade.
How to use it
- Right-click the Start menu and choose Windows PowerShell (Admin) or Terminal (Admin).
cdto the folder where you savedCuraCure.ps1.- Run
.\CuraCure.ps1. - If you’ve never run a script before and see an execution-policy warning, allow it for this session only with
Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Scope Process.
The script is commented step by step, so you can read exactly what it changes before you run it.
Where Cura keeps these files (this week)
As of Cura 5.3.0, UltiMaker moved the definition files again, to C:\Program Files\UltiMaker Cura 5.X.0\share\cura\resources\definitions. They’ve lived in AppData and elsewhere in the past. Taking bets on where they go next.
A word of caution
This may be obvious, but I’ll spell it out: with the restriction gone, your nozzle might run into bed clips if it homes or prints where one sits. Be mindful of where your clips are.
More Ender 3 tinkering on this site: a glass print bed with thermal pads and a Stardew Valley boot logo.
Free and open source, and it’s staying that way. If it saved you some time, you can buy me a coffee.